Advocates regroup for last leg of the journey

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Four years after thousands walked across the Harbour Bridge in support of reconciliation, attempts are being made to put the issue firmly back on the national agenda.

State MP Linda Burney and Democrats Senator Aden Ridgeway have been appointed ambassadors for reconciliation, a new program has been launched drawing on grassroots support and Senator Ridgeway has called for May 27 to be a national public holiday - Reconciliation Day.

Jackie Huggins, co-chairwoman of Reconciliation Australia, said yesterday Pathways to Reconciliation would be the biggest community reconciliation program since the Bridge walk, which was part of Corroboree 2000.

At the unveiling of plaques on the bridge to honour the May 2000 walk, the Premier, Bob Carr, said the event had seen the "dislodged, displaced and dispossessed" original Australians and the "colonisers and invaders" reaching out to one another. "It was a great, happy and generous statement about Australian people and what they wanted for their nation."

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Sir William Deane, co-patron of Reconciliation Australia, said it was an unfounded dream to believe that reconciliation had been achieved with the bridge walk. Since then, reconciliation seemed to have hit a blind alley, although it remained strong at the grassroots. It was time to start a new push, he said.

Helping to launch Pathways to Reconciliation at the Opera House, Sir William said the first stage of reconciliation culminated in the 1967 referendum that removed discrimination from the constitution; the second ended with Corroboree 2000.

"Here we are again, setting out on the third, and hopefully final, stage of the national journey," he said. "It's not enough to walk and talk together but time to work and achieve together."

Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, the other co-patron, said: "The great news is that people across Australia are getting on with reconciliation."

Ms Burney said the events of 2000 left unfinished business. It was necessary to move now to urgent business because "we are losing so many important people" - the death on Wednesday of a senior elder of the Wangurri people, Mr Djerrkura, cast a pall over yesterday's events - and because young Aboriginal people deserved it.

Senator Ridgeway said May 26 was national sorry day in Canada and Australia should have a public holiday for Reconciliation Day. He was encouraged at St Joseph's College yesterday to find 17 indigenous boys attended the school.

Brigid Delaney reports: A rally outside Taree Council chambers yesterday protested against the council's decision not to fly the Aboriginal flag for National Reconciliation Week.

The issue had driven a wedge between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community in Taree, said the Reconciliation Committee chairwoman, Janice Paulson.